Visions Nightclub

3554 E Washington Ave.
As the dominant purveyors of nude entertainment in Madison since the mid-1960s, brothers Alphonse and Tom Reichenberger have pretty much seen it all. They took over a failing piano lounge in the mid-1960s, turned into a go-go club and operated the Dangle Lounge just off the Capitol Square until 1981. They have also run Visions, on East Washington Avenue, since 1978.

The Reichenbergers overcame arson, city ordinance fights, loss of liquor licenses and myriad other obstacles to keep Visions open and successful.

In 1981, they agreed to a deal that closed the Dangle and was supposed to terminate adult entertainment at Visions, by 1986. But in 1986 the Reichenbergers changed the entertainment at the club to avoid "excessive emphasis on the breasts" of the dancers, in compliance with a city ordinance that does not ban all nudity.

"Every kind of entertainment is attractive to somebody," Tom Reichenberger said in 1997. "We happen to have burlesque entertainment."